


long con

by usingmyoxygen (keithsforeheadtattoo)



Category: Breaking Bad
Genre: F/F, Rule 63
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-01
Updated: 2013-05-01
Packaged: 2018-04-27 13:40:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,203
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5050663
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/keithsforeheadtattoo/pseuds/usingmyoxygen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>jesse follows lydia's pre-ordained commandment of "don't talk to anyone but me" with an exactness that feels bitter. lydia watches the younger woman give a full thirty seconds of unblinking eye contact in response to some inaudible question from a flower girl who can't be more than five years old.</p><p>"that was just a guideline, you know," lydia says when she intervenes and pulls jesse aside into the nearest bathroom. </p><p>"you seemed pretty real about it on the way over here," pinkman scoffs as she shrugs away the hand lydia tries to place on her shoulder.</p><p>-</p><p> </p><p>  <b>lydia needs a babe to take to her sister's wedding and jesse needs anywhere to be.</b></p><p> </p><p>  <b>i found more ladyjesse on my hard drive from 2013, so. thar she blows.</b></p>
            </blockquote>





	long con

"is this about the stock?" clicks through the speaker of lydia's phone before she can ask herself what this is about. she'd expected some leeway, conversationally, she realizes only now -- anticipated some sort of back-and-forthing "yo, what's good, dude"-type talk before business.

so she says "oh," and stutters, and feels more and more like the idiot she'd expected to be speaking with. 

"…lydia?"

"it's me," she assures first-off; moves the phone away from her face to breathe. "i, uh, was calling about your schedule."

"i'm not supposed to be there now," jesse delivers immediately.

"no," lydia grabs at the bridge of her nose, "no, you're right, you're not, that's not the part i was calling about, i just…"

she moves the phone away from her face to breathe.

"…i just was wondering what kind of a schedule you were looking at. for the, uh." lydia swallows hard. "the twenty-third. of this month."

"you mean i'm working then?" jesse deadpans, her voice sharper than lydia's heard before. maybe it's the call quality, lydia thinks extra-hard to fight the part of herself that can't stop thinking _maybe it's because she hates you_.

"well, i'm not in charge of that," lydia starts, cutting herself off with a flitting, nervous laugh. 

"so you don't set my schedule…but you still called me about my schedule."

lydia bites her lip. "just your schedule for the twenty-third. i wanted to know if you were…"

she moves the phone away from her face to breathe.

"…free."

jesse says "oh," and stutters, and makes lydia cringe when she volunteers that she "could move some shit around."

\- - -

it was all her sister's fault. it was that simple. staring into her final unwed sibling's save-the-date had stirred up every dumb, facetious "gay divorcee" joke every friend and family member had ever had the audacity to say to lydia's face. she'd vowed in the time that it took to walk from her p.o. box to her car that she'd show up to her sister's wedding neither alone nor with a man, whatever that ended up meaning when the time came. she hadn't predicted, then, that it would mean bringing a junkie coworker along as arm candy, but it certainly feels like that's what she's doing now as her eyes dart from her date (slouching, legs uncrossed, winston churchill cigar) to the surrounding throng of other wedding-goers (normal).

jesse pinkman had been chosen on the sole, imagined qualifier that she'd be the easiest person to convince to tag along at the promise of an open bar. 'regret' isn't precisely the word for what lydia feels about that decision now, but it's close. jesse pinkman had turned out, instead, to be the most difficult person, maybe on earth, to wrestle into a formal dress and heels and make casual daytime conversation with. impressing anyone is a goal lydia has thrown out the window before they'd even arrived at the venue, replaced by a fervent mantra of please don't either of you fucking fuck this up.

jesse follows lydia's pre-ordained commandment of "don't talk to anyone but me" with an exactness that feels bitter. lydia watches the younger woman give a full thirty seconds of unblinking eye contact in response to some inaudible question from a flower girl who can't be more than five years old.

"that was just a guideline, you know," lydia says when she intervenes and pulls jesse aside into the nearest bathroom. 

"you seemed pretty real about it on the way over here," pinkman scoffs as she shrugs away the hand lydia tries to place on her shoulder.

no, lydia thinks, and then says aloud, "no… no, i am not having a fight with my fake girlfriend at my sister's wedding," trying her hardest to phrase it as a threat and not the desperation it feels like.

"girlfriend?" jesse repeats, amused; "you're trying to pull a fucking long con on your family?"

if there is anything to the credit of the girl's social skills, it's how readily lydia has found herself saying almost anything to pinkman, unafraid of judgment from someone who she knows is, in essence, a common thug. naturally, it's not the type of compliment she's about to voice.

"i don't think there's anyone who deserves a long con more than my sister," lydia spouts, reapplying lipstick over the closest sink. she watches a laugh light up in jesse's eyes, reflected in the mirror. 

"yeah? she's that bad? …bad enough to make you bring me?"

"there's plenty of reasons why i brought you," lydia says, and the one that she's thinking of is her own current and mortifying lack of friends, but she's licking lipstick off her teeth as she speaks, and judging by the look pinkman wears in response, lydia's meaning flies off in a vastly different direction.

"oh man. are you serious." jesse says without a question mark. she's still laughing but her voice is low and almost reverent now, her eyes scanning lydia in a vastly different way.

lydia's heart hammers. jesse pinkman's almost cartoon irises are nothing short of magnetic and oh god, lydia thinks now in a wave of embarrassing and sudden self-awareness, oh god. she looks back in the mirror at her own wide pupils and kicks herself for not actively compartmentalizing her feelings. she'd tried to tell herself it was a pick-of-the-litter type of situation, that if she worked with a crowd of fucking monsters then of course jesse was the comparative best, but there's nothing to do with comparison now as she turns to size up the girl in her periphery and still feels her breath catch in her throat.

there are definitely, lydia understands, plenty of reasons.

"how old are you, again?" she stammers.

\- - -

at the close of an obligatory age gap joke, jesse sticks her tongue out at lydia who tents her hands over her face in surprise.

"oh my god," says lydia.

"well… shit, i mean, sorry," jesse starts. her hand rapidly turns unsure, gesturing lamely while still clutching the skirt she'd removed from lydia in record speed just moments prior.

"no, i mean--oh… my god…" it's eleven-thirty p.m. and lydia has been up since before sunrise. she blames this for the way she falls into the down comforter, face-first and helplessly giggling. "i've never slept with a girl with a tongue ring before," she breathes, flustered, excited and nervous.

pinkman looks flattered and embarrassed all at once.

"not really a ring," she mumbles while lydia kicks back into gear, propping herself up against a stack of pillows barricaded against the headboard.

"i wouldn't know the difference," lydia says, then lets out a tiny gasp: jesse pulls her own dress over her head in a single move and lydia's swimming in tattoos she didn't know about before.

"you will," jesse promises in a low murmur, laughing softly into lydia's neck.

\- - -

"y'know, i have this room booked for the next three days," lydia breathes as the number of orgasms she's had tonight surpasses a relative estimate of how many she'd achieved during her entire marriage. 

jesse says she doesn't have anyone to get back to in albuquerque with the acerbic grief of somebody who really, really doesn't.


End file.
